The saga of the mando (RCG #098)

[chris]

This instrument started as an idea in my then girlfriend's (now fiancée, henceforth referred to as Christina) head. She wanted to build an electric violin. With frets. We decided a mandolin would be a better idea. She designed the body, roughly based on one of her violins. Christina bought a hunk of maple and we proceeded to transfer the design onto the wood. She also bought a rosewood bridge and fingerboard blank from StewMac.

[chris]

This project was started at about the same time as RCG started building guitars for other people.

The original design was to be a 1-piece body/neck/headstock. We drew some lines with marker and hacked it up with a jigsaw.

[chris]

I freehand routed the shape halfway through, then finished it off with a following bit from the other side.

[chris]

We left the headstock design open at this point. We were planning on using 4 strings and a Duncan Hot Rails wired in parallel (because I had one).

[chris]

At this point, school got in the way. Christina was in training to become a Nuclear Medicine Technologist, and was living with her G-ma 25 miles away. She sanded and filed by hand for a year, refining the shape. Then the project sat.

When we started working on it again, we decided to change to a bolt-on neck. I had bought one to build my own mandolin (8-string) in January '06. We combined our mandolin projects into one, using her body and my neck/pickup (older Bill Lawrence). We sliced off the neck and headstock portion and refined the shape to match my neck.

[jeremym19]

man, I love build threads.... keep it coming

[chris]

I'll post more later, as time permits. I've invited Christina to join the forum and fill in some details.

[mojocaster]

very cool stuff! And congrats to you and Christina on the engagement

[zombywoof]

As I told ya when I first saw the pics, that mandolin sends me running for the drool bucket.

[Rich]

We gotta gang up on Christina.. She's a little shy...

Really talented, but shy...

[schmeezle]

I've been hibernating in my cave for the winter...

The project began because I'm a flute player who's still mad at her mother for not letting her learn the violin in 4th grade instead. So, just to spite her, I bought a violin when I was in high school. Naturally, it sucked.

Later on, as I took some lessons and showed a little interest, I inherited one through a family friend (turns out it was the one my mom used to play in high school). It's a copy of the Italian maker Maggini, made in France about 105 years ago. It's old, looks cool, a bit larger than the standard violin, but is a bit on the overly bright side for my liking. (I'm a bit of a tone snob.) So, seeing how my violin playing ability was not going to come up to par anytime soon, especially when I'm a bit lazy about practicing, I decided that I would "enhance it". Well, seeing how I loved how old the instrument is and thinking it's gorgeous, I figured maybe I shouldn't touch it...

Instead, I'd build a new one. Turns out, I forgot to sign up for advanced violin making in school...

Well, at one time or another my brother had attempted to teach me mandolin, since it has the same fingerings. I basically understood what to do but I couldn't play it because it was too hard for me to push down the strings and continue to like the instrument at the same time. So, I thought perhaps if I made a mandolin instead of a violin, but with lowered string tensions and single instead of paired strings, I could essentially get what I was looking for. The mandolin also had the benefit of frets, since I had intonation problems with the violin on occasion. Then, Chris brought up the problem that my new mandolin idea might not be loud enough due to using half the amount of strings. It turns out, I also didn't sign up for acoustic mandolin building in school either...

Well, if I took 4 strings instead of 8 so I could physically play it, amplified the sucker to compensate for the volume, made it a solid body so I didn't have to deal with acoustics, fretted it to deal with intonation issues, and shaped it like my old violin, I'd have the perfect instrument. Sounded more like an electric mandolin that looked like a violin at that point.

I thought about giving the instrument a cutaway of some sorts, seeing how it is on the ever-so-popular Tele. Not to mention, the cutaway would give room for my hand to hit the high notes on the fretboard (I am, after all, a flute and piccolo player...) I wanted the instrument to look unique, classical, and modern all at the same time too.

I figured that if I could jump from an acoustic violin to an electric mandolin in a matter of a couple days I could convince Chris that he should do all the manual labor for it too...

Now I'm trying to convince him to work on an electric violin... this is what happens when you hang out with musicians with tools...

Anyways, Chris is doing a fine job explaining my insanity...

[chris]

We ordered an ebony bridge and knobs to match the new fingerboard.
After we sliced the neck off, it was more hand sanding to refine the shape of the body.
We located and marked the neck pocket, pickup location, and bridge location.
Routed the pickup cavity and decided where we wanted the knobs.
Marked for the knobs and drilled clear through the body from the face.
Used the holes in the rear to locate a large forstner bit and make an individual
cavity for each pot. The space between the pots got opened with the router.
Located and drilled for the output jack. Drilled wire holes for the string ground and pickup.
We cut the neck pocket and attached the neck with three recessed bolts.